Written at Abbey Road because the other songs were weak
In May 2019 Noel Gallagher wrote Black Star Dancing in Abbey Road’s Gatehouse because, he told Radio X, the other songs he had were not very good. It was the first High Flying Birds release since Who Built the Moon? in 2017. He produced this one himself. Paul Stacey engineered, with Abbey Road assistant Dan Hayden. Nile Rodgers was in the building, working with Rebecca Ferguson. Gallagher asked him, roughly, why he was writing songs with her while Noel was out there struggling. Rodgers smiled, played a guitar lick, and later came back past the studio. The track was up. Rodgers asked if it was his, and danced. He called it dope. Gallagher repeated the word and made sure the quote stayed attached to Rodgers, not to him.
Sour Mash released the single on 2 May 2019. The EP followed on 14 June, digitally and on 12-inch vinyl, with artwork by Gareth Halliday. Besides the title track it holds Rattling Rose, Sail On, a 12-inch mix, and a ten-minute revision by The Reflex, the London producer Nicolas Laugier. Session credits also list Mike Rowe on keyboards, Emre Ramazanoglu among the engineers, Craig Silvey on the mix and Greg Calbi on mastering. The groove is the point: a disco pulse after the David Holmes productions, with Gallagher naming David Bowie, INXS, U2, Queen, Indeep and ZZ Top as the pile he had been listening to, and blaming too much Top of the Pops.
The video arrived on 7 May 2019. It is built from 1970s footage of ITV’s The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, the variety show compered by Bernard Manning between 1974 and 1977. Manning introduces the turn. Colin Crompton sits in the crowd. Gallagher is cut in as the act on that club stage. It is a joke about light entertainment wrapped around a dance record, not a moody performance film. The official clip is the one that travelled, and it matches the song: bright, a bit ridiculous, and built to a 12-inch.
It manages to combine the influences of David Bowie, INXS, U2, Queen, Indeep and ZZ Top. I might have been watching too much Top of the Pops recently. Anyway, it’s dope, not my words, but the words of Nile Rodgers, who literally danced in the studio when he heard it.
(Noel Gallagher, May 2019)
The UK singles chart peaked at 91. The sales chart reached 28, the vinyl singles chart 25, and the independent singles chart number two. The EP came out on 14 June 2019, the same day High Flying Birds headlined the Isle of Wight Festival. The NME review of that show puts Black Star Dancing in the set, between She Taught Me How to Fly and the Oasis songs, in front of a crowd the review put above 35,000. Gallagher said “Good evening Isle of Wight festival” and otherwise let the songs run. He had already said this EP was the first of three planned for the year. This Is the Place and Blue Moon Rising followed before Christmas.
Black Star Dancing is a short, bright record from a songwriter who had spent the previous album letting David Holmes push him toward the floor, then booked the Gatehouse and wrote a new one on the spot because the folder was weak. Rodgers dancing at the desk is the review that sticks. The social-club video is the picture. The chart position is a footnote on a song built to be played long, on vinyl, with a French disco edit waiting on the same EP.
